Boston Public Library Anti-Slavery Collection

Anti-Slavery collection (approximately 40,000 pieces). In the late 1890's, the family of William Lloyd Garrison, along with others closely involved in the anti-slavery movement, presented the library with a major gathering of correspondence, documents, and other original material relating to the abolitionist cause from 1832 until after the Civil War. The major holdings consist of the papers of William Lloyd Garrison, Maria Weston Chapman and Deborah Weston, Lydia Maria Child, Amos Augustus Phelps, John Bishop Estlin, and Samuel May, Jr. A full run William Lloyd Garrison's, The Liberator as well as the account books for the newspaper; records of the American, Massachusetts, and New England Anti-Slavery Societies; the libraries of William Lloyd Garrison, Theodore Parker, and Wendell Phillips, all of which contain relevant pamphlets and broadsides; and the files of Ziba B. Oakes, a slave broker of Charleston, South Carolina are among the other relevant material included in the collection. Along with the account books for The Liberator, included on the Internet Archive site is the approximately 12 hundred letters dating from 1835- 1868 of the five Weston sisters: Maria Weston Chapman, and Anne, Caroline, Deborah, Lucia and Mary Weston. Known for their tireless efforts to end slavery, the Weston sisters corresponded with the major figures of the movement both in the United States and Great Britain, such as William Lloyd Garrison, Samuel May, Jr., Richard and Hannah Webb, Harriet Martineau and Edmund Quincy.

Critical funding to support long-term preservation of and enhanced public access to Boston Public Library collections, including this one, was provided by the Associates of the Boston Public Library.